The Cut
by simba317
Summary: Jax/Tara A missing scene between Jax and Tara during the Season One finale. Jax steals into Tara's room the night before Donna's funeral.


**Author's Notes: **So…I really got into Sons of Anarchy these past few weeks…and the scene where Tara puts the cut on Jax always not only felt incredibly symbolic…but also felt like there was a scene missing. So this is basically how I imagine the symbolism and the missing scene to be.

I think my friend said something very poignant after she saw The Pull, that Jax and Tara can't be together without blood on their hands. And for me, when Tara put that cut on Jax in the Season One finale, it was symbolic of her becoming Jax's old lady, but also of her accepting Sam Crow and Jax's responsibilities to the club as well as the bloody lifestyle. And that moment just sort of inspired me.

This story is also a bit longer than I intended…and I didn't know exactly when to end it because I feel like I have a lot of false endings and the middle kept going on and on.

**The Cut**

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"Oh my God, Jax."

Tara's whispers cut the silence of the room as she caught sight of the haggard form of Jax Teller climbing through her bedroom window. He brushed her curtains to the side, letting the silvery light of the moon filter in. It was a scene reminiscent of any number of nights from ten years back. Only he hadn't been stealing over her bedroom window in the time since. It didn't stop the dreams though. Hundreds, thousands of endless dreams that haunted her sleep with an impossible longing, inescapable memories and imposing regret.

Yet, in all her dreams, Jax never looked this…defeated.

She went up to him as he crossed the threshold with a graceful jump that was accomplished with the practiced ease of delinquency.

"Are you okay?" she asked, brushing the blond strands from his worn face. Never before had she seen his youthful features bear the marks of age. There had always been a certain boyishness to his face that disguised the more bloody aspects of his life. When she first came back to Charming, she could almost see the same boy she left eleven years ago. Sure, he had aged, became a bit harder, but Jax was still Jax. That was gone now.

It was all in his eyes, his haunted eyes.

He sighed, clasping her hand as it rested against his cheek like he was afraid to lose her. "No, I'm not."

"What's wrong, Jax? What happened?"

In response, all she got was a sardonic smile, reminding her of the not-so-distant past and all the half-truths and brush offs her teenage self had been given by the man standing in front of her now. It was all too sad and all too familiar. Some things never changed.

Suddenly, a dark bundle in his hand was tossed haphazardly tossed onto the floor. His cut.

Tara let out a gasp. She had never seen a Son disrespect their cut like that, least of all Jax.

She reached to pick it up, but Jax folded the pair of them onto the edge of her bed, taking up a position not unlike Rodin's Thinker. An impossible weight had taken hold on top of his shoulders. He was tired and weary when he answered.

"Everything I love about that cut, everything it stands for- Loyalty, Brotherhood, Truth- is a lie; has become a lie. My father's legacy? It's nothing more than a bunch of convicts wanted by the Feds. This isn't what I patched in for, but it's what I'll inherit," he mourned.

This wasn't what happened. She knew better than to expect a straight answer. However, it was the crux of the issue and it was somewhat more than she expected from him.

Before she could respond, he was speaking again, harshly, "And nothing you do will make this shit better. You can't do anything to help this. It's all on me. My responsibility. My problems." She could hear his words come out in pants from the rage in his voice which translated to his twisted features.

He took a breath. Then another, blowing out the rage in a long exhale. He wasn't here to run with his rage. He was here for something else entirely.

She wondered if what they had between them had always been so volatile. They had a spark, a spark that could be nurtured, that could grow to form the endless warmth of a supernova, but that supernova could explode at any moment. And this spark was more tentative than the last one, the selfish, reckless one. Was this nurtured growth or complete destruction?

"Yet, I come to you anyway," he continued softly, searching for something in her eyes, "I want to resent you, hate you so much. Because when you left, you left this cut in me that never healed. It sits there, festers, and never really goes away."

"But, here I am and there you are…" he murmured in wonderment, absentmindedly tracing the lifeline on her palm, "Because when I'm with you, it's like I'm in the eye of the storm and it's safe. Peaceful." Shaking himself from the childhood memory of tracing their matching lifelines, he clasped her hand and he revealed, "Everything's better. My burdens don't feel so heavy. It's everything I've been missing since you left."

Tara's brows furrowed and Jax could see the beginnings of tears glaze her eyes, "Jax…We never would have had a chance back then. I needed to be something more than Jax Teller's old lady and you couldn't be my lap dog, following me around the country. Besides, your place was always here, with the club." And she pulled her hands out of his to wring nervously at her knees, causing a pit to form inside him. She was always running away, spilling through his grasp, out of his reach. "It was never a place I could go with you."

"You're more than just an old lady. Always were," Jax insisted.

"I can't do this again," she erupted, her eyes clenched and her body shaking, "Do the worrying, the wondering…Feeling like an idiot. Being that girl, the statistic. Feeling all the pity on everyone's faces, their disdain. And all of the fighting, the women clawing at you…When do I ever really get to be with you in there? I can't live in that," she continued and he could see her dashing half way across the country to Chicago already. The suitcases at the foot of her bed haunted him for they held the crushed up remains of his heart ready to depart at any moment.

"My life would be one big waiting game. I'd wait for you to come home, if at all. I'd wonder if you were safe, if you were hurt, if you were still alive. I'd worry that you'd never come home to me. And most of all, I'd be waiting for a phone call or a visit, by the police, Clay or one of your brothers telling me you were gone and then what would I have?" she rambled and Jax could see the tears that had descended down her cheeks in the moonlit darkness. This was not unlike the thousand secret moments this bedroom had witnessed of the two them in the shadows. He didn't want it to be last.

"Are those excuses or do you really believe that?" Jax lashed out acerbically.

Tara laughed mockingly. A whisper cut the air harshly, "I _lived_ that, Jax! For three years. All through high school. What kind of life is that? I'm not exactly in the mood for the Sam Crow After School Special, Part 2!"

"Tara, look at me," he implored as he smoothed the tears off her pale cheeks with his thumb.

"I can't promise that this will be easy, because it's not, but what I know beyond all else is that I can't let you go without a fight and I wish you would fight for this too. I know it's a lot to ask for. Hell, this is fucking crazy. But you said that I've changed, that I'm not afraid to be vulnerable or let someone in. You wanna know why? It's because eleven years ago, I was impenetrable and it cost me you," he whispered and then leaning forward to touch his forehead against hers, he let slip, "I'm not young and stupid anymore and I don't think I could lose you again."

Wrapping an arm around her waist, he felt relief as her arms coiled around his neck. He placed a kiss against her forehead and then used his free hand to cup her cheek so she could see the sincerity in his eyes, "I knew you were the one for me when I was sixteen. That hasn't changed. There's this moment here. Right now. And there's a chance there. We're not nineteen anymore. We've grown up apart so that we could be together now."

"Jax…" And in her heart, she wanted this badly because she was dying of thirst and he was her salvation, her water, her life. But her head was screaming at her not to play the fool again. She knew better. This was no good for her. How do you reconcile two impossible worlds?

"I love you. I never stopped and I probably always will…" he interrupted. And that was the honest truth of the matter. It was Tara or confirmed bachelorhood. All or nothing. He was sure of that now.

Tara nodded, unshed tears shading her eyes, "I love you, too…But love isn't always enough." Something they both knew painfully well.

"I know," he agreed and then kissed her deeply, savouring every moment because it could very well be the last time and he needed to remember her. He needed something. He needed the sweetness of her lips that he had gone without for years, the sweetness he had craved. He needed the air from her lungs to give him breath. He needed her warmth, her touch to soothe his soul. He needed her. Just like she needed him. So she wasn't living a half life, an accomplished, but lonely life.

He wished he wasn't so pathetic sometimes when it came to her, but he would settle for this, if it was all they had left between them. A single kiss. For all the memories, everything that had been, everything that could still be and for his heart that had resided within her for as long as it had mattered. It was a goodbye, a promise, a hope, a cry, a lament. All this she understood, as she clung to him tighter, returning with just as much urgency his heated kiss.

They weren't sure who broke the kiss first, but it needed to be done.

"I guess I'll go and let you think," Jax said, breaking their embrace with reluctance and heading towards her window.

Swiftly, Tara reached for the floor and grabbed his cut, "Don't forget this," she said. It sounded absurd to her ears. She never thought she'd say it.

"Don't you remember how it's done?" Jax asked.

Tara merely scrunched her nose in confusion.

"You know, the way it works when you declare someone your old lady? The ceremony?" Jax clarified.

Tara's brows furrowed as she paused. "…A girl accepts her Son's cut from one of his brothers and puts it on him at a club gathering…"

Jax nodded, looking at his feet and the distance between them gulfed. But she remembered, he thought. She remembered.

"You want to know by tomorrow?" she said disbelievingly.

It was tomorrow and a second chance. To do it right. Better.

It was renewing a long forgotten vow. The vow she put on her back all those years ago. She had sworn her oath with that crow. Forever. It was never a child's promise, something to be broken so easily. It was born with blood.

Sometimes he wondered if her back still burned like fire when she thought of the weight of her promise broken. It was what he had felt on his back every day since she had been gone. That somehow her absence had been the beginning of his recognition of the fracture in what the reaper meant. Because why would she leave something that stood for Brotherhood, Loyalty and Truth?

"At the funeral?" she realized, shocked.

There would be no innocence this time, but what was the world of adults but cold, hard truth? If she could choose that, they were meant to be, if not, she would be a childhood fairy tale.

"It's the next club gathering," Jax explained.

"Jax…it's Donna's funeral!" she exclaimed indignantly.

"I know, but if you don't fight for this now…You never will. And I can't wait forever. It's a simple question," he whispered, running his palm over her cheek, his eyes memorizing every last feature. It was a moment he'd never had when she fled before. He had been stuck with only aging photographs and the strings of fluttering memories turned to sand. He wanted to be able to close his eyes and see her face. Maybe that was the cause for all the bodies in his bed those lost years. It was only then, he could see her clearly. Those green eyes, the dark coils of her chestnut hair, the smooth porcelain skin…He needed just another viewing. Time and time again. To see her face again…Like a junkie chasing that mythical dragon, the great high.

"It's not a simple answer," she said again, crushing him a little.

"It's just 'yes' or 'no,'" he replied.

"I wish it really was." It was unsaid between them. She had left the club, not him, even though the result was the same. She wasn't in his life. He put the club first.

Jax sighed, picking up his cut from the floor and placing it into her hands, "Look…I'll leave you to your choice. Juice will come by tomorrow to pick you up for Donna's funeral and to look after my cut. It's your choice to take it when he presents it to you and complete the ceremony."

"You want me to keep it overnight?" she asked incredulously.

"I trust you." _So trust me. Trust this._

"Why don't you want your cut tonight?" she pressed. She knew. She knew him well.

"It hurts too much right now," he admitted, "But I'm not gonna give up on it." And Tara knew he meant more than Sam Crow. But just like she knew him, he knew her. She knew she was running again through avoidance.

She nodded, understanding and he kissed her forehead softly before stepping over her window sill.

"You remember what I said when we were seventeen?" she whispered her voice cracking in the din, "When your mom started trying to force us apart?"

Jax leaned over the window sill, his feet secured on the grass. "It doesn't matter what she does because we'll always be together. Because you're my sky and my stars and no matter what, the moon always keeps them company."

"You remembered," she said awestruck.

"I never forgot you," he replied, before giving her one last glance and going to his bike.

So maybe Selene would wax once more and there would be no more new moons for him.

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Hope you enjoyed! I'd love to hear from you!

~simba_317


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